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Penal Labour Argumentative Essay

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Barack Obama once said,”The United States is home to 5% of the world’s population, but home to 25% of the world’s prison population.” Showcasing how easily the United States Government can incarcerate people and what minimal actions have to be done in order for the government to make the prisoners work countless hours a day, with little to no food or water. And that despite being a “free country”, where opinions matter, the US holds ¼ of the world’s prison population. Penal labor is defined as unfree labour is that required by prisons and the government. These workers are put hard manual labor that takes weeks to get accomplished. Despite the US Constitution explicitly stating that the government is not allowed to impose harsh environments …show more content…

The 13th Amendment states that government is not obligated to impose harsh authoritative power upon its citizens, but current United States prisons are home to some of the harshest conditions because the prisoners are not malnourished enough. This is due to the poor working conditions and lack of food provided. Also, the United States implemented the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act that made it illegal for United States companies to buy from countries that allowed penal labor in the hopes of getting lessening the topic of penal labor. Instead, companies saw an increase in product from those countries, but the United States did not say anything because penal labor is a billion dollar industry. The solution to get rid of penal labor is the the United States Government should revise the 13th Amendment and have mandatory career training and education programs in prisons, because these will help the prisoners in their lives. The limitations to our solution are that there is heavy corporate lobbying that wants the penal labor to stay in American prisons because it brings in billions of dollars of revenue to the United States government. Also, this capital lobbying is done by top investors and company owners in the country, who have a higher say in the government than the average

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